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I found this on the website of my local newspaper (macon.com).

Posted on Thu, Mar. 26, 2009
Macon man stabbed over waffle
By Amy Leigh Womack
A 26-year-old Macon man is listed in stable condition at a local hospital after being stabbed Tuesday afternoon following an argument about waffles, according to the Macon police.
Alex Harris, of Maple Street, was stabbed in the rib area following a fight with another man at about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to a police report released Wednesday.

Branican Shaquille Mains, 18, of Houston Avenue, is charged with aggravated assault and is being held on $11,200 bond, according to Bibb County jail records.

Harris was taken by ambulance to The Medical Center of Central Georgia for treatment.

Toilet chef’s try at hot sausage evacuates prison

CLALLAM BAY, Wash. (AP)— An inmate’s attempt to heat up sausages in his toilet went up in smoke when the cooking fire forced a unit evacuation at a Washington prison.
Clallam Bay Corrections Center spokeswoman Denise Larson says 130 inmates were evacuated to a dining hall when smoke was spotted coming from a sewer vent pipe Wednesday evening.
She says the smoke was traced to the inmate’s cell and he admitted to trying to heat up snack sausage bought from a prison store in the stainless steel toilet. The inmate’s identity has not been released.
The toilet chef has been placed in segregation pending discipline at the prison on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.
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Man gets 90 days in jail in vacuum sex act case

SAGINAW, Mich. (AP)— A man police caught performing a sex act with a car wash vacuum has been sentenced to 90 days in the Saginaw County Jail.
Jason Leroy Savage must also submit to drug testing.
The 29-year-old Swan Creek Township man was sentenced Wednesday in Saginaw County Circuit Court. Savage pleaded no contest to indecent exposure last month.
Police say Savage was arrested after a resident called officers early on Oct. 16 to report suspicious activity at a car wash in Thomas Township, about 90 miles northwest of Detroit.
Savage’s attorney, Philip Sturtz, didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment.
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Bank robbery suspect caught after he called 911

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP)— Police say they caught a bumbling bank robber who crashed his getaway car and fled by bus and taxi, only to make it home and find his roommate dead.
Authorities found nearly $4,000 stolen from a Darien bank after the suspect called 911 to report the roommate’s apparent suicide.
Fifty-nine-year-old David Maksimik was brought before a federal magistrate in Bridgeport Tuesday.
Police say he held up the bank on Jan. 29 and rear-ended another car fleeing the robbery. They say Maksimik didn’t make it home until he got rides on a bus, a taxi and with his sister.
Maksimik found his roommate dead and called 911. Police responding to the suicide say they found the bank money inside a bag on Maksimik’s bed.
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Boston headmaster sucks life out of vampire rumors

BOSTON (AP)— The headmaster of a prestigious Boston school is trying to drive a stake through rumors that vampires roam the campus.
Lynne Mooney Teta (TEH’-ta) sent a notice Thursday to teachers, students and parents associated with Boston Latin School. She denied the presence of vampires and said recent rumors were disrupting classes.
Apparently they were serious enough for Boston police to visit. Spokesman Eddy Chrispin said police were called to the school Wednesday to help quell the rumors.
The school was founded in 1635. Its students have included Ben Franklin, Sam Adams and Louis Farrakhan.

Madoff gets trading card in set featuring scammers

NEW YORK (AP)— Now you can trade your two Ponzis for a Madoff (MAY’-dawf).
The Topps Co. Inc. says jailed Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff will be featured this summer in a set of trading cards dubbed the “world’s biggest hoaxes, hoodwinks and bamboozles.” The New York-based marketer of entertainment products says the cards show scoundrels and villains such as Enron, D.B. Cooper and Charles Ponzi.
Ponzi was a notorious swindler who ran what is now known as a Ponzi scheme — the kind Madoff pulled off for years until authorities busted him.
Madoff pleaded guilty this month to 11 felony counts, including securities fraud and perjury. His scam cost investors billions of dollars.
The 70-year-old former Nasdaq chairman could get up to 150 years in prison when he’s sentenced in June.
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Diners can ‘have a ball’ at testicle festival

OAKDALE, Calif. (AP) — The fundraising idea may seem a little nuts, but Oakdale’s annual Testicle Festival is always a big hit.
On Monday, volunteers with the town’s Rotary Club plan to fry up 400 pounds of the private parts of bulls and serve them to diners who pay $50 apiece for the sit-down meal.
The event, whose proceeds also benefit the Oakland Cowboy Museum, has drawn an average of 450 people and last year raised $28,000.
It’s common practice on cattle ranches for young male bovines to be castrated into steers, which after the initial loss, eventually makes them more docile and easier to handle. Fans of the delicacy, also referred to as “mountain oysters,” come from around the state.
According to Rotarians, everyone who buys a ticket is guaranteed to “have a ball.”
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NY company to launch Mexican-made kosher tequila

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York businessman is launching a new kosher tequila in time for Cinco de Mayo.
Martin Silver says Agave (ah-GAHV’-eh) 99 will be on the market in time for the holiday that celebrates Mexico’s defeat of French forces on May 5, 1862.
Silver, president of Long Island-based Star Industries, says he wants to satisfy the craze for high-end tequila with one that observant Jews can drink.
Silver says a half million cases of the 99-proof kosher tequila are being produced at a Mexican plant using methods certified by a rabbi. It will retail for $41.95 a bottle.
The product launch — with Mexican songs sung in both Yiddish and Spanish — is set for May 5, but it will also be sold earlier for Passover, which starts at sundown on April 8 this year.

Good lord.

Monkey business: Zoo a step ahead of pranksters
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP)-- If you get a message to call a "Mr. Don Key" on Wednesday, the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines is one step ahead of you. The zoo, in an effort to stop the numerous prank calls it typically gets on April Fools' Day, has set up four hotlines for pranksters looking to dupe others. Numbers have been set up for such April Fools standbys as "Mr. Albert Ross," "Mr. C. Lyon," "Ms. Anna Conda," and the aforementioned "Mr. Don Key."

Each number has a prerecorded message letting callers know they'd been fooled.

Marketing director Ryan Bickel says the lines are a proactive attempt to stop the zoo's switchboard from getting flooded with prank calls without dampening the mood of the day.

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Warning sought for burger the size of your head
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP)-- The West Michigan Whitecaps say they have no plans to put a warning label on an enormous new hamburger they're selling this season - despite a vegan advocacy group's request to do just that.

Susan Levin, a staff dietitian for the Washington-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, sent a letter to the Grand Rapids minor-league team on Tuesday. She's asking that the 4,800-calorie burger be labeled a "dietary disaster" that increases the risk of cancer and heart disease.

The $20 burger will feature a sesame-seed bun made from a pound of dough, five 1/3-pound beef patties, five slices of cheese, nearly a cup of chili and liberal doses of salsa and corn chips. The 4-pound, $20 burger features five beef patties, five slices of cheese, nearly a cup of chili and liberal doses of salsa and corn chips - all on an 8-inch bun.

Whitecaps spokesman Mickey Graham says the burger is a gimmick that's being promoted as a very unhealthy menu item.

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Jobless gather for 'Unemployment Olympics' in NYC
NEW YORK (AP)-- Who hasn't secretly wished he could pin the blame on his boss? Or slam office equipment against the pavement? Dozens of unemployed people got the chance to do exactly that during the tongue-in-cheek Unemployment Olympics on Tuesday. In a twist on the classic game Pin the Tail on the Donkey, participants pulled a hat over their eyes and spun around before using a pushpin to attempt to Pin the Blame on the Boss.

Those who missed the target sometimes hit some of the other options scrawled on the colorful sign: The War, ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages), Consumer Spending, The FED and The Economy.

The Manhattan event, organized by a laid-off computer programmer, was decidedly low-tech, with most games arranged with the help of cardboard, children's paint and chalk.

Competitors also played a game of Office-Phone Skee-Ball, hurling a black phone toward chalk goal marks on the pavement. A group of schoolchildren from nearby cheered them on.

Prizes were offered by merchants from the surrounding Lower East Side neighborhood.

Nick McGlynn was among those who lined up at Tompkins Square Park in front of a cardboard hutch labeled with bright green paint as the Unemployment Office, where participants were required to show proof they had lost their jobs. The 26-year-old, who worked with video for Gawker Media until he was let go in November, said he was thrilled to have something to do besides searching the Internet and updating his blog.

The gaiety of the event was enough to make Maria Tapia smile, a welcome relief from the anxiety that accompanied her layoff in January from a job as a finance executive's personal assistant.

"I never knew that I wanted a job this bad until I didn't have a job," Tapia said.

But at least at these simple games, "people are trying to look at it in a positive way," she said.

The organizer, Nick Goddard, said that sort of reversal was pretty much his aim: "Just to get unemployed people psyched that they're unemployed," he said.

That might be pushing it for 36-year-old Gary Ross, standing at the park outfitted for a race just a few weeks after being told he was losing his job as a lawyer working with capital markets.

"I did read the other day that all the cool people in New York are unemployed and looking," he said. "For the first time in my life I'm cool. Hopefully I won't be cool for long."

Domino’s mistake: 11,000 free pizzas
CINCINNATI (AP)— “Bailout” was the magic word as Domino’s had to give away thousands of free pizzas because someone stumbled on an online promotion the company scrapped.
Domino’s Pizza Inc. spokesman Tim McIntyre said Wednesday that the company prepared an Internet coupon for an ad campaign that was considered in December but not approved.
He says someone apparently typed “bailout” into a Domino’s promo code window and found it was good for a free medium pizza.
Word about the code spread quickly Monday night on the Web and 11,000 free pizzas were delivered before it was deactivated Tuesday morning.
Cincinnati-area franchise owner John Glass says his 14 stores gave away more than 600 pies, but that Domino’s promised to reimburse him.
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Family survives deer’s scary trip into SUV
COEYMANS, N.Y. (AP)— Five people in an SUV south of Albany escaped with minor cuts and scratches when a deer hurtled through their windshield and landed in the back of the vehicle.
Heather Sherman says she, her boyfriend, her two daughters and her mother were driving Saturday night in the town of Coeymans (KWEE’-mihnz) when an oncoming car hit the deer, sending it into their windshield.
Sherman says she and her boyfriend were covered in blood after the impact. They pulled over, and when she went to the back of the SUV to get a blanket and paper towels, she found the dead doe in the vehicle’s cargo area.
The deer flew past Sherman and her boyfriend in the front seats and her daughters and mother in the back seats.
Sherman says no one in the SUV remembers ducking.

Woman’s tofu license plate curdles
DENVER (AP)— One Colorado woman’s love for tofu has been judged X-rated by state officials.
Kelly Coffman-Lee wanted to tell the world about her fondness for bean curd by picking certain letters for her SUV’s license plate.
Her suggestion for the plate: “ILVTOFU.”
But the Division of Motor Vehicles blocked her plan because they thought the combination of letters could be interpreted as profane.
Says Department of Revenue spokesman Mark Couch: “We don’t allow ‘FU’ because some people could read that as street language for sex.”
Officials meet periodically to ensure state plates stay free of letters that abbreviate gang slang, drug terms or obscene phrases.
The 38-year-old Coffman-Lee says tofu is a staple of her family’s diet because they are vegan and that the DMV misinterpreted her message.
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Woman finds, returns $358,000 check
LOS ANGELES (AP)— As she walked from a post office, Talon Curtis thought she’d found one of those gimmicky sweepstakes offers on the ground that scream something like “$357,959.55” in big bold letters and “This is not a real check” in much smaller type.
But just as she was about to do her part for a cleaner planet and deliver the paper from the parking lot to a trash can, she noticed it was a real cashier’s check with a real signature.
“I couldn’t believe it. I almost passed out,” Curtis, who works as a loan negotiator, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I have never seen a check that big. Not in my possession, anyway.”
She immediately set out to find its rightful recipient, but it was Saturday afternoon and the banks were closing. On Monday, with help from KCAL-TV reporter Dave Malkoff, she located the check’s owner, who had arrived at her bank in a panic.
“I think she had walked in at the same time the bank manager called me back,” Curtis said. “I could hear her walking up to him. and I could hear all this commotion in the background.”
Curtis said she spoke briefly with the woman on the phone about a possible meeting, but Pacific Mercantile Bank instructed her to mail the check to them instead.
Not willing to take a chance on the mail, Curtis delivered it personally. A bank employee confirmed it had arrived.
Curtis said she never thought of keeping the check for herself, and she declined the woman’s offer of a reward. Still, she’s just a little disappointed.
“I just wanted to see her face,” Curtis said, laughing. “I just wanted to let her know that there are honest people left in this world.
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Say amen: Church holds Easter service in bar
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP)— A fledging Arkansas church will see if distilled spirits can mix with the Holy Spirit this Easter weekend.
A new Little Rock church called The River will hold both of its Easter services at The Rev Room, a bar and nightclub in the city’s River Market.
Pastor Shane Montgomery told KLRT-TV that it’s an effort to attract a new audience to his nondenominational ministry.
However, bar employees say it’s not yet clear if their liquor license will allow them to serve beer and booze during a Sunday morning service.
The church says it would also like to hold Mother’s Day and Father’s Day services at a bar.